


Problem Solving

by spinninginfinity



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, Fluff, post-Transition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-05
Updated: 2012-09-05
Packaged: 2017-11-13 15:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinninginfinity/pseuds/spinninginfinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josh and Donna have reasons for swapping sides of the bed.</p><p>
  <i>‘We have a problem,’ Josh informed Donna on their fifth morning in Hawaii.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Problem Solving

‘We have a problem,’ Josh informed Donna on their fifth morning in Hawaii.

He’d coaxed her awake by nuzzling at her shoulder and pressing soft kisses to her neck. He’d slipped his hands beneath the hem of her pajama top as she’d rolled over to kiss him properly and their legs were now twined beneath the sheets as their fingers wandered idly.

“We have a problem” wasn’t exactly the progression Donna was hoping for.

She pulled back a little, frowning at him. ‘What problem?’ Her heart lurched. ‘You haven’t… what we talked about last night—you’re not having second thoughts?’

Josh’s hand stilled between her breasts and his eyes went wide. ‘No! God, no, not that. You think I’d have been able to summon the courage to say all of that if I hadn’t been sure? No. It’s a much smaller problem.’

‘Oh,’ she said, relieved. Grinning, she arched her hips against his. ‘Is it a small problem I can help with?’

‘Mmm, yes, but it’s still not what you’re thinking.’ He pressed his mouth to hers again. ‘Not that I have any objections to doing that, you know, ever.’ He slid a hand around her uppermost thigh, hitching her leg up over his waist and resuming his exploration beneath her top.

Donna’s breath came a little faster and she stroked her fingers through his hair. ‘So…?’

Josh shifted them so she was half beneath him and lowered his mouth to her shoulder. ‘It can wait.’

***

Later, when she felt able to form coherent sentences again, she ran a finger down his chest and asked, ‘What’s our problem?’

Josh gave her a slightly dazed look. ‘Huh?’

‘Our problem,’ she repeated. She walked her fingers back up to his collarbone as she spoke. ‘We put off talking about it in favor of ravishing each other, remember?’

‘So we did.’ He gave her a lazy smile, catching her hand and kissing her palm. ‘And we have… absolutely no problems on the ravishing front, may I just say.’

She smiled back but pressed, ‘Josh.’

He sighed. ‘It’s not really in keeping with the current mood, now that I think about it.’

‘You can’t say “We have a problem” and then try to distract me from the problem with sex.’

‘You didn’t seem to have any objections.’

‘ _Josh_ ,’ she insisted.

‘Okay!’ He scrunched his eyes shut. ‘It just seems… kind of stupid now I’m more awake. Forget it.’

‘That’s not fair!’ She sat up, pointing a threatening finger. ‘I swear to god, if you don’t tell me what’s going on right now I’m going to put my clothes back on and not take them off again for the rest of our vacation.’

‘What about when you’re showering?’ he challenged.

‘You won’t be invited,’ she said primly.

‘Well, that’s a lose-lose situation if ever I heard one.’

‘You’re right,’ she said. She lay back down next to him, ghosting her mouth up over the curve of his shoulder to his neck. ‘I guess I’ll have to use my shower time to… take care of myself,’ she murmured, and pressed a kiss against his jaw. ‘You know?’

That did the trick.

‘You, uh.’ Josh scratched behind his ear. ‘You hog the bedclothes.’

She stared at him, nonplussed. ‘What?’

‘That’s it. That’s the problem.’

‘That’s the problem,’ she repeated flatly.

‘That’s the problem.’ He caught her look. ‘I told you it was stupid. But I have a solution, though!’ he added, before she could say anything.

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Yeah? What’s that?’

‘We swap sides of the bed.’ She frowned and he explained hastily, ‘Because you sleep on your right side. So if you’re lying on the right side of the bed as well, you roll toward the outside during the night, and take the bedclothes with you. See?’

‘Oh. And you sleep on your left side, so…’

‘So I roll out too. And if we swap we’ll roll inward, instead.’ He held his hands palms up, then turned them to fold them together. ‘Toward each other.’ He was flushing more and more as he spoke and not quite making eye contact and she couldn’t work out why, and then suddenly, oh, yes, she could.

She grinned. ‘Do I actually steal the bedclothes?’

Josh hesitated. ‘Sometimes.’

‘Because, you know,’ she said casually, tracing her finger in loops and swirls across his chest, ‘you must steal them back during the night.’

‘I do not!’

‘I’m just saying, because I haven’t ever woken up with more quilt than I should have. So I guess you must be tugging it back again.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Yeah, I—I guess I might be.’

‘And you’re the first person who’s ever mentioned it, so…’

‘Um,’ he said, ‘maybe they didn’t notice?’

He looked so endearingly nervous that Donna took pity on him. He’d laid everything else bare last night; she’d let the fact that he was a sappy romantic slide for now. 

‘So we’ll swap sides and roll toward each other?’ she asked, just to confirm.

‘Simple but brilliant, isn’t it?’ he said, his still-flushed face detracting from the cockiness a bit.

She shifted so that she was lying on top of him, lingering for a moment, meeting his eyes, and then rolled off him again so that she was on his other side, and propped herself up on her elbow. He turned onto his side to look at her. 

‘And hey—this means we’ll wake up facing each other,’ she said, as if the thought had only just occurred to her.

He reached up to put his hand behind her head. ‘There’s that, too,’ he whispered, and pulled her down for a kiss.


End file.
